Joey l assignment

Part 1: Joey Lawrence www.joeyl.com

About The first time I heard of Joey L was through a Creative Live workshop he did about commercial photography. He is a young photographer who has gained notoriety in the commercial industry for his portraits that have a cinematic fine art quality.

Joey L was a kid from Toronto area who started using his Dad’s DSLR when he was a pre teen to photograph toy dinosaurs and post them online.

As he learned and grew he began photographing local bands. Those portraits and some travel work he did got some attention from the industry and by the time he was 18 he was photographing commercial portraits for well known brands and actors.

Joey L’s style is one that has a painterly fine art quality similar to Steve McCurry and although he is leaning more to directing and film now, his love for portraiture overwhelmingly felt when you view his body of work.

What and Why His style ranges from this hard contrasted cinema images to soft toned and beautiful glimpses into other cultures with a seamless quality in his portfolio.

Varanasi, India ”Holy Men”

He has evolved in style over the years but remains consistent in his process and post processing creating works that resonate with soul and depth.

Joey has expressed during numerous interviews and tutorials that the success of his images is controlled by his use of light and getting it right in camera and that his editing is minimal generally, but is dependant on his clientele.

His understanding of light and ingenuity with lighting has set him apart in the industry generating work from many brands including HBO and the History Channel. However the images I love most

Portrait of Didar, YPJ Commander

of his are his personal work and street imagery where he generally uses available light with one strobe.

He uses for the most part standard focal lengths and lower apertures to create the soft backgrounds in his images which is also a preference of mine as I like to be closer to my subjects to evoke a more personable emotion. His focal lengths are generally 85-35mm but I know he likes to be in the 50 mm range and prefers fixed focus lenses for the quality they produce.

When on location and for travel photography he has a portable backdrop that he uses so that he can create not only environmental portraits but portraits that seem to be set in studio even though they are not.

Generally on location he is using a one strobe set up and his modifier is a deep set octobox. He uses natural light and elements as fill, however I know after watching his videos that he does do more elaborate lighting set ups on location depending on the clientele and look he requires.

His Clientele Joey L is branded as a commercial photographer who’s work has been used in ads by Canon, National Geographic

Channel, The U.S. Army, the A.C.L.U., and Jose Cuervo to name a few. He also has also photographed a good handful of celebrities such as Danny Divito, Robert Di Niro, Jennifer Lawrence and many others.

His clientele are people who want to create high end, high quality environmental portraiture that has a fine art feel with portraits that seem to be from the soul and can range from many branches of advertisement to high profile celebrities.

Although I know his personal works are all test subjects where costs come out of his pocket or various networks such as crowd funding, his paying clientele are high end brands.

Website and Pricing The website for me is easy to use, stylish with a high end contemporary feel. It starts you with a portfolio of his work that is so stunning that you can’t help but want to see more. He has multiple feature sessions to browse and includes many links to videos and side projects throughout his menus so there is no shortage of work or knowledge of how he does what he does.

He does not have any pricing information on his website which I believe is normal for a photographer of his calibre who does work on quotes generally.

I strongly believe there is a market for this type of portraiture in my area.

It’s different and people like different however it’s harder to accomplish without assistants to help move lighting and hold reflectors. It truly does depend on how you market yourself and how much time you’re willing to invest in your clients and vice versa.

Joey spend hours and days with his

Canon Billboard L Series Lens Ad

subjects while traveling and for the most part gets to know them well and shows them the respect of his time and conversation before he even pulls his camera out. That approach isn’t always feasible if you’re working with a family who has young toddlers and are super stressed about the experience to start with.

His style My market His style of portraiture would be more geared towards business professionals and commercial work for clients who want environmental portraits. I do believe there is a huge market that would love to have portraits like his created for them here however I don’t believe I could (for the most part) charge New York rates locally especially for the consumer market.

There are a few brands in the area who could be willing to invest in this type of commercial head shot if they enjoy the look/style and Toronto is a short drive away where there would be many more clients willing to hire a photographer of Joey L’s calibre.

What it takes I think in order to achieve this level of photography I need more time and travel money and a cash-flow to afford my own

studio in a better market. I also would need to hire a support staff as he has multiple assistants on every shoot. My post processing skills are probably very similar to his but my command of a shoot from start to finish isn’t as strong for sure.

Joey seems to shoot on overcast days or pre sunrise or post sunset where the light is flatter and he can add strobes to shape the light. It’s tough to get consumer clients on board for shooting at these hours (and even some commercial clients) as they don’t work for most peoples schedules. He uses a lot of top of the line equipment so my investment to match his quality would include the purchase of a medium format camera a few more lens. Also, top of the line lighting equipment and modifiers and the investment of a studio space. So in short I would need $50 000, and since there’s no rich husband helping me out, all I can do is work with what I have and charge appropriately for my own market.

Tribute to Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman’s “In Voluptate Mors.”

Part 2: Joey Lawrence’s Portrait

My Analysis: Firstly I feel like this portrait captures the spirituality and presence this man must have in his community. I see someone who is soulful, and who respects each breath that he is given.

The composition of this images is amazing with the leading lines of his dreadlocks that bring you up to his peaceful face and the off centred position of the subject with the horizon line and the eye line being within the rule of thirds (give or take) My favourite aspect of this image is the positioning of this Holy man face. The highlights from the strobe are so gorgeous and bring out the detail beautifully. The lighting set up for this image was a very high octobox held above to camera right. The exposure for the sky and his skin tone would not have been possible if it this was a natural light image however, this photographer uses strobes for the majority of his on location photography which is an important element of his style.

Admittedly, for this image I can not say for sure what the F stop would have been but I am guessing F5.6 I am pretty sure he likes to keep his aperture low even when using strobes. I also guess that he’s using the 50 mm to photograph this man.

Part 3: My Portrait

My Analysis: What I am drawn to most about his style is that he seems to take risks and adds adventure to his personal work. His documentary about the Kurdish fighters is something that everyone should watch. I love those images and the images he was hired for of the US army and that’s where I drew inspiration for this photo from. I thought about who I could create a portrait for that represents local heroes and fire fighters were the first and best idea that came to me.

For this portrait I went on location (with an assistant to help with lighting) while the fire-fighters were doing their ice rescue training.

I was limited to a higher aperture while shooting outside at mid day despite it being mostly overcast which also made the sky look pretty flat so I used the water etc as a background when my original intention was to create an image that had more sky in it as he often does with his imagery.

I also used my 70-200 at 200mm create a softer background as my aperture was at F/9 to allow for the strobe to be the main light and the natural light to be fill.

I had my assistant hold my speed-light with octobox, diffuser and grid set up so that the light would create more of a side lit loop light look.

My edit was to add contrast to the image then soften the shadows as well as cool the image from how it was shot. His body position and expression is similar to those in his images as he captures in his portraits more depth and realness than posing and happy expressions.

I had planned on meeting the fire-fighters again as I didn’t feel I nailed the look however between my son and I getting sick couldn’t arrange for another attempt and had to settle for this one. I don’t feel it a bad portrait or bad attempt but wanted to try again under different conditions.